Rashida Jones Dishes on Parks and Recreation

Admit it, you are too. How can we not love her? She is awesome as Karen Filippelli on The Office—aside from the whole stealing Jim from Pam thing. She makes hilarious movies—have you seen I Love You, Man yet? She writes screenplays—a studio just bought her new script—and tonight she returns to our TV sets in NBC's Parks and Recreation starring opposite that other lady we so dearly love, Amy Poehler.

And after months of anticipation, P-Rex, as we here at Team WWK like to call it, is finally here, and we were lucky enough to chat with Rashida about it last night. "I'm really excited to finally get it out there and get it rolling, get people watching it, get them interested in the characters."

So forget everything you have heard about P-Rex so far. The show is genuinely funny. Here's what you need to know: Amy Poehler plays Leslie Knope, a Pawnee, Ind. city employee in the parks and recreation department who longs to make a difference, and she seizes the opportunity when she teams up with Rashida Jones' local nurse, Ann Logan, to transform a dangerous and disgusting construction pit into an amazing park.

Check out what Rashida has to say...

So who is Ann Logan? "[Ann's] such a different character. It's nice to be able to play off of Amy who’s ridiculously, amazingly talented and a wonderful person, but also the dynamic of our friendship is very different than my dynamic onThe Office. I want to be friends with her, and I trust her, and I kind of believe in her sometimes-hapless optimism. It’s nice to be able to play both sides of that, where I’m a little suspicious, but I also really like her. She's like a big kid, you know?"

Yes, Amy’s Leslie Knope does sound like the second coming of Michael Scott, but Rashida promises that P-Rex is definitely its own show. "It was really nice to be back with Greg [Daniels] and Mike [Schur], and it was also really nice to start something new because when I came into The Office, everybody was so sweet and inviting to me, but I really came into a well-oiled machine. It's nice to be able to create something from the ground up."

P-Rex is currently filming the fifth of its six episodes, and Rashida tells us that if we stick around, we won't regret it. "We will continue to work on trying to improve this pit. Also you'll see some flourishing of relationships and dynamics between the characters. You'll see more interpersonal relationships. The truth is, the pit is there and it's big and it's weird and that's Leslie’s main focus. But there will some lingering things at the end of episode six that hopefully people will want to see wrapped up."

Parks and Recreation premieres tonight at 8:30 on NBC. Let us know what you think.